Russian politician uses surrogacy as a weapon against Ukraine
A newborn baby lies in an incubator. Photo EPA, Lukasz Gagulski
Eastern Europe
The Speaker of the Russian Parliament claims that Ukraine is trafficking children by permitting surrogacy. Something that Russia partly banned last year.
According to Vyacheslav Volodin, Speaker of the State Duma and a former aide of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Ukrainian government is supporting the trafficking of children. He said so on his Telegram account. "These children very often have a difficult fate: they become victims of crimes, primarily organ trafficking", Mr. Volodin wrote. "The surrogacy industry is flourishing in Ukraine, while it is banned in many countries worldwide."
Volodin furthermore pointed out that in contrast to Ukraine, the Russian state does forbid surrogacy. Last December, President Putin, himself internationally wanted for illegal deportations of Ukrainian children, signed a law banning surrogacy for foreigners and single men.
According to Mr. Volodin, "hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians were forced to join the army, and their wives became surrogate mothers of foreign citizens."
Business
Although it is not independently verifiable how the war has affected the number of available surrogate mothers, several media outlets recently wrote about how surrogacy clinics in Ukraine are doing good business despite the war.
For example, POLITICO writes about BioTexCom, Ukraine's largest surrogacy clinic. "While Ukraine fought back against Russia, BioTexCom tried to incorporate the struggle into its marketing. It launched a PR campaign to “Make babies, not war” and said they “will do their best for your dream of becoming parents. Nothing can stop us.""
According to the founder of the company, business is going well. "We have a great shortage of surrogate mothers; the number of potential clients is three times more than the number of surrogate mothers."
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